--- title: "Prominent NFT Marketplace Shuts Down Almost All Sales for Fraud" description: "A marketplace best-known for selling Jack Dorsey's first tweet as an NFT has had to \"pause\" nearly all sales because it was being used to break the law." date: "2022-02-14" modified: "2022-02-14" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/cent-nft-shutdown" categories: - "Blockchain" - "Cryptocurrency" - "Future Society" - "NFTs" tags: - "crypto" - "nfts" - "web3" --- # Prominent NFT Marketplace Shuts Down Almost All Sales for Fraud ![]() *\Image: Futurism\* A marketplace best known for selling a non-fungible token (NFT) of former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's [first tweet]() has had to "pause" nearly all sales because they were being used to break the law. As first [reported by *Reuters*](), the NFT marketplace Cent has had to shut down almost all sales because, as CEO Cameron Hejazi admitted, "there's a spectrum of activity that is happening that basically shouldn't be happening — like, legally." In a "[community update]()," Hejazi explained that it had come to his attention that "bad actors" had been using Cent to "mint" counterfeit NFTs, which generally involved selling copies of NFTs that didn't belong to them or creating NFTs of content they didn't own. In other words, the marketplace encountered the exact problem NFTs were designed to solve in the first place: assigning rights to digital assets that people actually own. Cent cited a lack of an "industry wide standard for counteracting bad behavior" for its reasoning behind shutting down almost all NFT sales until the marketplace figures out "a strategy to overcome the challenges we’re facing." But there's one notable exception to the shutdown: [Cent is still allowing the sale]() of "Valuables," or NFTs of tweets "autographed" by their original posters, like Dorsey's tweet, which on its own sold for the crypto equivalent of [$2.9 million]() in March 2021. To Hezaji, it's symptomatic of a much wider issue. The CEO told *Reuters* that counterfeiting is "a pretty fundamental problem with Web3." Web3 is the overarching concept of a new iteration of the internet that relies on blockchain tech like NFTs. Cent is far from the first platform to struggle with the NFT movement's seemingly insatiable propensity for fraud. Last month, popular NFT marketplace OpenSea restricted the use of its free minting feature after [admitting that more than 80 percent]() of the tokens made with the tool "were plagiarized works, fake collections, and spam." https://twitter.com/opensea/status/1486843204062236676?s=20&t=-IymilwPpkwXLZ09ShaLig In many ways, the concept of ["theft" of an NFT](), which confers no physical value to its owners, seems at best a foregone conclusion. On the other hand, the trend could be seen as justified retribution by scammers for taking part in what's likely a [drastically overvalued]() market. Regardless of what one thinks of NFTs, the fact remains that there is a [staggering amount of fraud]() occurring in the space, which should raise plenty of red flags. If there was ever a time to make a concerted effort to root out the fraudulent elements plaguing NFTs and the Web3 movement, it's now. **READ MORE:** [Marketplace suspends most NFT sales, citing 'rampant' fakes and plagiarism]() \[*Reuters*\] **More NFT scams:** *[Because the World Has Lost its Mind, You Can Now Buy NFTs of Strings of Emojis]()* ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()